lfcommsgroup

A blog by APR* discusses how to save 80% on transcreation costs

‘Conventional wisdom tells us that bundling services with one vendor is a great way to create efficiency and lower costs.  The more work that you bring a vendor the better their prices will be, as they will lower costs to account for the increased volume of work.  That concept holds true in nearly every phase of commercial production except for transcreation, when bundling services can actually increase your costs – often times exponentially.

Transcreation is the process of creating versions of a spot for different markets, while maintaining the original spot’s intent, style, tone and context.  If you’re using the same post-production house that created your original spot (we’ll call them “creative post houses”) to create versions of that spot for different markets, that bundling of services is probably costing you more money.

There are a variety of vendors who exclusively offer transcreation services, some specializing in international markets and others for the US market. What they all have in common is that because transcreation is their exclusive business, they can create a version of an existing spot for a fraction of the cost that your creative post house would charge.

So, what accounts for this vast discrepancy?  A transcreation company has an entirely different business model and different operating costs than a creative post house (I’m using the term “creative post house” to describe both creative editorial houses and VFX/Animation houses).  A top-notch creative post house is concerned with attracting and employing high-level creative talent (editors, colorists, flame artists, etc) because that’s what their business is based on; generating high–end creative work product. That talent is very expensive, and competition for those key people means that a good deal of overhead is spent paying them ever-increasing salaries. Also, an industry leading creative post-house typically has gorgeous offices in great neighborhoods to entertain clients (adding to their overhead). On the other hand, a transcreation company doesn’t do any creative work. Their entire business is replicating existing creative work as accurately as possible.  Consequently, the talent at a transcreation company need only be competent with the software required to do their job, and their creative ability doesn’t factor in, making them considerably cheaper to employ.

A good analogy for this phenomenon is found in the generic drug market.  The brand that first creates a drug and brings it to market spends an immense amount of money on R&D, FDA testing, scientists and other personnel, facilities, marketing, etc.  But, once the formula has been established and the drug is brought to market, anyone who can follow a recipe can make the same exact drug for a fraction of the investment. That’s why branded drugs cost so much more than generics for the same product. And, that’s why a transcreation company can take an original spot that cost a great deal of money to make, and copy the existing formula for a fraction of the cost.

So, have a closer look at your adaptations or versioning costs & explore other options. I’m not talking about a tidy 20% savings, but often times the same version can be created by a transcreation vendor for a whopping 80 – 90% savings over what your creative post house or agency is charging for the exact same version of an existing spot.’

*Posted on March 29, 2013 by aprcoblog (Advertising Production Resources, Denver Colorado)

In the context of the greatest sporting event of all time, yes the 2012 London Olympics is totally amazing, you may be forgiven for missing the slow rise of the production agency profile.

Production covers advertising, TV and online services but there’s still a huge volume of below the line content being created by ‘below-stairs’ teams that ADAPT AND LANGUAGE VERSION those beautiful brochures, catalogues, magazines, as well as the more functional data-sheets and manuals.

The de-coupling of agencies, the separation of creative from implementation, is certainly on the increase and is most probably driven by the lack of transparency of advertising and creative agency fees. Here’s a link to Paul Simons’ interesting article ‘The march of the production specialist through de-coupling threatens key ad agency revenue stream’

What about the SME’s?

For every major international brand, there are hundreds if not thousands of smaller companies with European and global communication requirements. So hopefully, with all this publicity about de-coupling, international marketing teams will realize they can simply go direct to production agencies like us for their global marketing implementation, instead of using their more expensive advertising and creative agencies.

Lesley Cameron – Lesley.cameron@lfcommsgroup.com

01959 560521 – 07766 567986

Looking to improve marketing efficiency?

Accountable allocation of the marketing budget is essential in these challenging economic times but finding new ways to save money or achieve more with it, are difficult.

When it comes to GLOBAL PUBLICATIONS, separating the creative design from the implementation (translation and multi-language typesetting) can deliver better value (lower costs) and improved performance (quality and speed). Sure, it takes a little effort to bring on board another supplier but de-coupling concept/creative from translation/multi-language artwork production, is a natural divide and it brings about total transparency of where your money goes.

Split creative from implementation

Using a single agency with global reach may make you feel comfortable but chances are it comes at a far higher price than you think. The benefits of using a separate agency with exclusive multi-language design experience, international font libraries, artwork creation technologies, business sector specific professional translators, multi-language proof-readers and quality control assessors, will lower costs without any loss of brand control.

Transparency = reduced costs

Splitting creative design from production and insisting on transparency of charges, will reduce costs. Speed to market is also vastly improved with a centralized production hub and each stage is far easier to plan, monitor and control, empowering the marketer. You’ll probably find the agencies work harder too, each team able to focus on their area of expertise.

Join many international brands who are already using the de-coupled agency approach to produce their global publications and stretch your marketing budget further than you ever thought possible.

lesley.cameron@lfcommsgroup.com

01959 560521

LFCOMMSGROUP

We’ve been thinking about a really simple way for clients to select the service they need and as the Olympics is on all our minds, here’s our idea.

You simply choose from a Gold, Silver or Bronze service

There’s one to fit every marketing team or design studio’s skills, resources and most importantly timescale.

So whether you need your English datasheet adapted into five languages, or a 30-language pan-European brochure project totally managed, we can complete your project quickly and cost-efficiently.

Get in touch with Lesley Cameron – 01959 560521 to chat about your marketing projects.

De-coupled agency model produces significant & measurable benefits

The de-coupled agency model is the collaboration of separate agencies to deliver marketing services and international marketing may also require the services of  translation and artwork production agencies.

Companies have varying internal resources and many have links to creative, translation, advertising and print production agencies. In-house designers and marketing teams come at a price and they will also have other pressures and responsibilities. Using freelancers can be cost-efficient but lack of commitment and continuity is an issue. Global creative and advertising agencies excel at creative concept, design, branding and ATL (above the line) media however, they do not generally offer spend transparency and the responsibility of BTL (below the line) marketing production is often left to less experienced managers.

In contrast, the de-coupled agency model provides SME’s maximum flexibility to cost-effectively outsource all their marketing services or to supplement in-house resources. The ability to draw on expertise from hands-on management teams (consultants, operation directors, project managers, designers, translators and editors) with best practice skills and tried and tested operational processes, is a highly practical and economic opportunity.

Benefits of a de-coupled agency set-up:

• Spend transparency
• Reduced costs
• Best practice sharing
• Improved performance
• Experienced specialist teams

For more information please contact Lesley Cameron at the LFComms Group (lesley.cameron@lfcommsgroup.com)